


Fire

by WahlBuilder



Category: Mars: War Logs, The Technomancer (Video Game)
Genre: Character Study, Electrocution, Gen, Kidnapping, Technomantic Culture, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-20
Updated: 2018-10-20
Packaged: 2019-08-04 18:48:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,884
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16352174
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WahlBuilder/pseuds/WahlBuilder
Summary: The ASC kidnap Roy and part of his family, but Roy isn't about to be their toy.





	Fire

**Author's Note:**

> A sort of continuation of [Incandescent](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15854172). And... with the rest of them. As usual.

His head is swimming.

It’s not because of the blow or the taste of his own blood. It’s a great unbalancing of the world, a shift of dimensions, of axes.

It is rage.

It is an explosion that has scattered his awareness all over the place and away from his own body. He is the scuttling of a lone mole underground, he is atoms of the air.

He pulls himself together, folding his rage, folding it over and over until it’s pressed tight inside him. So thick the air is like tar. He pushes it away from his lungs and spreads it carefully all throughout his body, but the thickness of it, its core, he leaves in his heart. It doesn’t matter whether his mental image of supercharged cells in his body is accurate—he feels full. It is so much he feels like his ribcage might bloom out, unfurl like a flower, the lotus of gods, giving birth to sweeping fire.

They all will burn.

Roy opens his eyes.

‘Finally, awake.’

He tries to get up, but it’s not easy with his hands tied behind his back. He is hauled up. He steadies himself and takes in his surroundings.

It’s a warehouse or an hangar, stripped of everything now, and, according to his previous expansion, a part of a bigger structure. High ceiling and rafters overhead.

Being hauled hasn’t helped much with the pain in his head, but physical pain is familiar, albeit coming to him only dimly, barely making it through the thick layer of rage.

He takes stock of everything else, confirming with visuals what he felt earlier. Twenty Technomancers arranged in a circle around him, each being held at nailpoint by two heavily armed thugs. A nail scratches the back of his neck, too. Three more thugs for him. Heavy ceramic armour—protection from electric charge.

He glances up. On the rafters, a dozen more thugs with rifles, though in usual armour.

At last he looks in front of himself. At yet another person.

‘Done with your inspection?’ The man arches a brow. He does it as elegantly as Sean, but it conveys a different meaning. Though, as with Sean, makes him look somewhat younger. ‘I am Colonel—’

‘I know who you are,’ Roy says. He swallows his own blood, licks his lips. At least no teeth seem to be missing.

‘Introductions out of the way, then. Capital.’

Some sort of corsetry and support for his neck and jaw. Both armour and… Roy surmises someone had beaten the bastard brutally in the past, and then he was outfitted with this garb. Roy wouldn’t mind doing it himself again. To tear that armour-corset away, pry it off like a shell and get to the soft bits underneath.

Half the world thinks Technomancers are crazy, and spirits know Roy is called that often enough—but now, he wouldn’t mind demonstrating just how ‘crazy’ he can get.

Except…

Except for the two Technomancers held behind the bastard.

Zach’s face is set in defiance—but he’s pale and there is a bruise on his cheekbone—and he keeps throwing glances to his left. Andrew is bleeding from his nose, his head lolling, and Roy doesn’t like it at all. His left arm is no more than a few twisted scraps and torn wires. He’s up only because the thug behind him is holding him up.

It’s all Roy’s fault. He knows it well and sees it in Colonel Bastard’s face, too.

‘Make a wrong move, and we’ll do more than just break their arms,’ the colonel says, unblinking. ‘I take it you understand that.’

‘Yes,’ Roy says. His rage is so thick it doesn’t spill into his voice. ‘I understand.’

‘You are a conduit. Is that correct?’

This is it. _This_ is his fault. This is why the boys have been kidnapped together with him, why the Abundancean Technomancers have been brought here.

‘Or a living switch board,’ Roy says. ‘Whatever you want to call it. Yes, it is correct.’

‘You are an Auroran?’ Colonel Bastard keeps his hands behind his back. Roy can feel his heartbeat, slow and measured—but some imperfection to the rhythm.

‘I belong to no Guild, _òrd-cac_.’ It is a rather unwitty response, and he can almost applaud Colonel Bastard because his pose, his face don’t change—but his eyes _do_ , telling Roy that the colonel is versed in several languages. Fun.

‘You shall demonstrate your powers,’ Colonel Bastard says evenly. ‘Or further harm will come to your kindred.’

Roy could tell him to go fuck himself. Could tell him that he doesn’t care about others—could play the tough guy. But his rage is folded tightly inside him.

They are _his_. Zach—because he’s Sean’s. Andrew—because he’s Zach’s sworn pupil. And all others, even though he knows not their names. They are his because they are Sean’s family, and the witty bastard is now _Roy’s_ family.

Roy ran away from the Source—only to gather his own years later. All because he met Innocence.

They are his responsibility, like the Auroran Source was, years ago (and never ceased to be). He is glad that Mary wasn’t captured. These Technomancers around him are family by virtue of being Sean’s and Zach’s—but he doesn’t know them and they don’t know him and they don’t know…

The rage is compressed neatly.

‘If you attempt to overload,’ Colonel Bastard says, perhaps taking his silence for hesitation, ‘one of the boys will die. If you attempt to harm us, one of them will die. Understood?’

‘You don’t even know how this works, do you,’ Roy replies. What, does the colonel want him to make himself a living bomb right here?

‘Hence,’ the colonel says smoothly, ‘this little demonstration. How many Technomancers can you link together at the same time?’

Oh, linking is easy. Roy can spread himself over a huge area and he never got to explore his limits. One doesn’t have to be generating a huge charge for that—the key is control.

And untangling himself from others, not pushing them over with a stray thought, is the tricky part.

He looks Colonel Bastard in the eye and says, ‘Everyone present.’

‘Good. Proceed, then. Just link others, take over their charge, and drop it.’

So easy.

‘I need my hands free.’

Colonel Bastard tilts his head, and rope is removed from Roy’s wrist.

He takes off his scarf—now ruined by his blood. Starts unbuttoning his jacket—when a nail scratches his skin, and Colonel Bastard asks, ‘What are you doing?’

Roy glances at Andrew. The boy has stopped bleeding, but still looks barely conscious. Not good. ‘My clothes won’t sustain a huge charge, and you wouldn’t want them to catch on fire, would you?’ he explains patiently, fingers hovering over buttons.

Colonel Bastard nods. ‘Proceed.’

While Roy ‘proceeds’, he makes an arc race between the fore- and middle finger of his right hand into the palm of his left.

The Abundancean kindred are not taught electrosigning, of any scale—but Roy has been teaching _Zach_ and those Technomancers Zach brought out of Ophir. The frown on Zach’s face smooths out somewhat.

He noticed. Good.

The signs means, _Trust me._

Roy continues divesting, allowing little sparks to run over his fingers. Nothing unusual, just a Technomancer being a Technomancer. He spreads his field carefully, brushes fields of other Technomancers in the room.

_Trust me. I’ve got this._

The scarf and the jacket come down, and he folds them on the floor because of course Colonel Bastard wouldn’t be amused by an attempt to make one of the thugs to hold the garments. The shirt and the undershirt come down next, and Roy’s doesn’t miss how the colonel’s gaze flicks down his chest. Yeah, you shit. I’m a survivor. Others have tried to kill me many times and didn’t succeed—and you won’t either.

It is a strange thing that he rather misses his Conduit outfit—not for the practicality of it (burns are inevitable and pain is a part of his life every day), but for the symbol it is. Even the full formal coat would be good. But Roy feels that his face is as good as the ceramic mask of the Conduit.

He leaves the pants on—not out of modesty, but because he doesn’t fancy sitting on the cold metal of the floor bare. He lowers himself down. Although he wonders what the reaction to full nudity would have been. He knows he’s a rather unhandsome sight all over. But he has no time. He has to get them out.

He folds his knees, getting comfortable, as though he has no care in the world. As though he isn’t burning.

His right hand at his side, he brings his left hand up in front of his chest, palm forward, fingers together. He looks straight ahead, unseeing.

They are wearing ceramic armour to keep away the charge coming from the outside.

But not the one they have within.

He looks up at colonel—and sees a flicker of worry in his eyes. Roy folds the middle and ring fingers on his raised hand, and his mask-face splits in a grin.

And he lets his ribcage unfurl.

***

One thing is universal for Technomancers regardless of faction: resilience. They are dazed but moving, and even Andrew is awake after being reinvigorated—though the boy definitely has a concussion.

They won’t meet anyone on their way out. Most of other people in the building are either dead or out and unlikely to ever wake up.

A gasp draws Roy’s attention as his kindred file out of the hangar.

He goes there, every step heavy and sending sparks and cracks through the air.

Colonel Bastard is trying to get up, but Roy presses a knee to his chest. The man goes still, eyes wide.

‘I wouldn’t get up right away, Colonel,’ Roy says. His voice is the roar of storms, the judder of quakes.

The colonel’s eyes fill with terror. Roy can imagine how he looks right now: lightnings dancing in the cavern of his mouth, his skin gleaming from all the metal particles that have been magnetised to it. A vengeful god, drawing lives out with a thought, thunderous in step. Roy tilts his head to his shoulder. His vision flicks between wavelengths. ‘Your heart might not survive another meeting with a Technomancer, Colonel. I guarantee you it won’t survive another meeting with _me_.’ He leans lower, and Colonel Bastard tries to push his knee off, but Roy feels like he is heavier than Mars itself. He can level Olympus and carve a few canyons all by himself. ‘You will not make me into your weapon.’

‘You… are a monster!’ the colonel manages. He’s still clawing at Roy’s calf, but Roy feels it only distantly.

He has enough trouble keeping himself human-sized. He grins down at the colonel and reaches to him, hand hovering just over his face, lightnings arcing between splayed fingers. The colonel’s eyes stop on them. ‘Yes! But unlike you, I’m not trying to hide it.’ He pushes himself off Colonel Bastard. ‘Don’t get up and don’t touch any metal yet. There’s still too much charge in the place. Good day to you.’

He walks away.

They burned.


End file.
